It's not a sanctioned national holiday, yet April Fool's strikes a special chord in those with a touch of malice in their hearts.

Young musicians -- spellbound -- watched a private performance Monday afternoon by award-winning violinist Axel Strauss, who performs tonight in the Napa Valley Symphony's last concert of the season.

The Gasser Foundation is beginning the public planning process that will determine future uses of 80 acres of prime land along Napa's Auto Row.

It's not a sanctioned national holiday, yet April Fool's strikes a special chord in those with a touch of malice in their hearts.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said Monday it is dropping its challenge to a court ruling halting oil and natural gas exploration off the central California coast.

Young musicians -- spellbound -- watched a private performance Monday afternoon by award-winning violinist Axel Strauss, who performs tonight in the Napa Valley Symphony's last concert of the season.

WASHINGTON -- American Indian tribes could derail local criminal investigations unless forced to comply with search warrants for tribal property, a lawyer for a California county told the Supreme Court Monday.

DENVER -- The outgoing Air Force Academy officer who oversees cadets endorsed his own removal Monday and said he would handle a meeting with a female rape victim differently if he could do it again.

The Gasser Foundation is beginning the public planning process that will determine future uses of 80 acres of prime land along Napa's Auto Row.

BETHESDA, Md. -- Marine lawyer Lt. Col. John Ewers from Camp Pendleton hadn't seen any combat in his 19 years in the military until he went looking for the father of an injured Iraqi boy.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court took up the subject of old sex crimes Monday in a case that could determine when statutes of limitations can be erased and prosecutions begun.

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman said Monday that he will work to secure congressional passage of a bill that would extend benefits to partners of gay federal employees.

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong invoked a colonial-era law today to quarantine more than 240 people in countryside vacation camps, part of redoubled efforts to halt the spread of a mysterious flu-like illness that has killed at least 63 people around the world.

American soldiers on the road to Baghdad fought bloody street-to-street battles with militants loyal to Saddam Hussein while tense troops in southern Iraq shot and killed seven women and children when the driver of a van failed to stop at a checkpoint.

HAVANA -- A Cuban Airlines plane hijacked by a man claiming to have two grenades and demanding to go to Florida took off today after a group of passengers safely left the craft.

SOUTH-CENTRAL IRAQ -- U.S. Marines waged a firefight with Iraqi forces today in and around the town of Diwaniyah, killing up to 90 Iraqis and taking at least 20 prisoners, according to reports from the field.